Oh, wait. That has internet ambiguity: What is "wrong" is to tell a person he or she is wrong to like someone. OK, maybe with rare exception, ha. But, really. It is not wrong to state how one feels, but to tell another how they should feel, stymies the endeavor of experiencing art.

Man i wish icould see this show. Not only are they light and fresh and easy-appearing in a way that reminds us how not-easy it is to get that quality, but that lightness is in fact polemical and critical. It is a resounding "no" to cleverness. Joe Bradley it ain't (but I like him too. . .)Meyer shows how "just" painting, just finding beauty and joy in color and motion and layering and structure, is in itself fraught with incredible difficulty and endless questions of personal decisions and tendencies.And I have never read a word by or about her, but this "just" painting is a vibe I get from them. She has a language, but she is not coralled by it.

ha! i knew someone was out there. I think lack of "fusiness" or "worked surface" is a better way to phrase it than "too easy," "it" being the quality that I can imagine would leave some unsatisfied.

Thanks, eageageag, and you are right i intended no self-connection, but I guess it stands to reason.

I do not, however, see the Heilmann or grafitti connection. Well, I do see them, in that I can imagine how someone else might see them, but it doesn't diminish them for me.thanks, eageageag, and you are right i intended no self-connection, but I guess it stands to reason.

Now if you said, hey, this is writing, not paint strokes, I could go with that scribbler dude Twombly, or Basquiat, who's handwriting is atrocious, as many males refuse to learn to dot their I's with smiley faces.

But is it any different?

Why this kind of tepid graffito lyricism appeals to people is beyond me. We live in troubled times, which call for expressionistic straight right Krag Mata jabs, not outdated Crane style Kung Fu sillyness.

Next we'll be sending WEndy WHite to Valhalla for riffing on Hodgkin. WTF.

oh but the quality of the line is different. WHo cares. Drop and give me twenty.

I mean fussiness is a state of mind, not an obligation, or even a style, necessarily. I agree if thats what you mean.

A neat freak can be fussy while appearing serene.

Forced lyricism.

A fussbudget can appear scattershot while attempting to nail a target.

Faked frenetic.

I find people who consume this kind of lyrical abstraction (late "dekooning" anyone?) often neglect the other states - mine for instance - finding it distastefull and rotten like a bad seed.

And the difference between the artists I mentioned and everyone else - say guston before he chickened out, or on the sedately figurative end - Will Cotton or Hilary Harkness - or more expressionistic maybe we go to the sensibility for the germans or their ilk - Jonathan Meese can be fussy without being fustian.

I like Melissa Meyer's work and nobody told me to or not to. I like it all by myself.

However unintentionally, Petronius Arbiter's comment points to a larger issue--how easy it is to be influenced by others' opinions about art despite the subjective nature of the viewing experience. I try not to read reviews, criticisms, etc. until after I see a show, or only if I can't see it in person. Same with films.